How can an evangelical
vote for a Mormon?Media organizations and pollsters have fixated on this
question for much of this year, thanks to the presidential
candidacy of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.So let me give my
answer and then explain.

As a minister with the
Evangelical Church Alliance, America’s oldest association of
evangelical clergy, I will cast my vote for Mitt Romney with
full confidence in both his character and ability to lead our
nation in the direction I believe we evangelicals can be
comfortable with.Nothing rare here; I am hardly the first evangelical to
voice support for this Mormon candidate for the highest office
in the land.

What might set me
apart from most of my evangelical colleagues is this: I have
spent the past two decades serving as a pastor just 18 miles
north of the MormonTemple in
Salt Lake
City.I know a thing or two
about voting for Mormons, as there is only rarely an
alternative in this state which serves as world headquarters
to the Church of Jesus Christ of Ladder Day Saints (LDS).Above all I have
learned and confirmed that their values mirror ours as
evangelicals, and voting for elected officials is more about
values, character and policy than it is about religious
affiliation.As
syndicated columnist Cal Thomas, himself an evangelical, has
written, “I care less where my ambulance driver attends church
than that he knows the quickest way to the
hospital.”

Mormons account for 62
percent of the 2.5 million people living in
Utah and hold virtually every elected
office in the state.While some of my fellow evangelicals across the country
have noted they could not vote for a Mormon, I have only voted
this way for 21 years and have appreciated their conservative
ideologies and policies as well as their strong commitment to
the family values I hold dear.Perhaps this explains
why Utahans are less likely than average Americans to smoke,
abuse drugs, die of cancer, or give birth as a teenager.These are values
evangelicals generally applaud, and attempt to model under an
evangelical worldview.Our fight as evangelicals in the political arena is not
against Mormons, who generally line up with our moral and
social values and preferred policies, but with political and
religious liberals who generally want to cleanse the public
square of all faith and morality.In the battle for the
traditional family in
America, Mormons have been our friends for
decades, not our enemies.

Furthermore, despite
fundamental doctrinal differences, Mormons have not been
anti-evangelical (something that cannot be said even of all
Southern Baptists), but have been very supportive of our
ministry right here in their back yard.Our church has grown
from 50 people to 2,600, and 700 students are enrolled in our
LaytonChristianAcademy.

The way some
evangelical pastors talk about Mormons suggests they not only
couldn’t vote for one; they couldn’t accept a call to a pulpit
in Utah because of their disdain for this
religion.What a
shame!How do we
expect non-evangelicals to vote for “one of our own” when we
can’t exercise the same kind of intellectually-thoughtful
support across the theological aisle?The “born again” Jimmy
Carter wasn’t elected by evangelicals alone and neither will
Mike Huckabee or anyone else be.Expecting what we
won’t practice ourselves seems to me to smack of
hypocrisy.

Some worry a Mormon
administration would not be friendly to evangelicals.Wrong.It was the city
bishops who allowed us to use their gymnasiums when we were
starting a Christian school and didn’t have such facilities
yet.Elected
Mormons like Senator Orrin Hatch, Rep. Rob Bishop, former
governors Norm Bangerter and Mike Levett have all attended our
church services and shared genuine enthusiasm for our
ministries here.Their records of public service would make evangelicals
proud in any state.In fact, contrary to some perceptions, the evangelical
community in Utah has experienced tremendous growth
while LDS membership has declined
slightly.

Voting for a Mormon
does not validate the Mormon religion any more than a vote for
John F. Kennedy validated the Catholic Church or a vote for
Bill Clinton was an endorsement of the Southern Baptist
Convention.Yet,
what if tens of millions of non-evangelical Americans
increasingly decided, “I would never vote for an evangelical;
those people are narrow-minded hypocrites!”In other words, this
primarily theological test works both ways and evangelicals
may find ourselves on the short end of this analysis more
often than we may already be.

This is precisely why
we must evaluate candidates for public office, and especially
for president, not on the basis of their church attendance,
but on character, integrity, values, their public life and
private behavior, their families and their vision for our
country.So,
while an evangelical pastor and a Mormon
businessman-governor-presidential candidate may seem like
strange bedfellows, I assure you, we are political and values
soul mates.

Rev. Dr. Myke D.
Crowder
is Senior Pastor at ChristianLifeCenter in
Layton, Utah, and a member of the executive
council for the National Clergy Council in
Washington, DC.

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